brothel Michael Finch Commonwealth Games Noise curfews, group photo- graphs, airport delays, buses and goodie bags that offer toiletry sets, shower shoes and, wait for it, a doorstop. Glitz and glamour? More like a stint in the army! That’s what awaited the likes of Chester Williams and Shaun Pollock when they arrived in Kuala Lumpur […]

Sechaba ka’Nkosi A controversial Northern Cape clergyman officially represented the province’s Department of Housing and Local Government at state expense, despite his shady background and the fact he was not an employee of the provincial administration. The Reverend Jacob Phenyeke was given a hired car to use for three days by MEC Pakes Dikgetsi in […]

Peter Makurube Kora awards The All Africa Kora Music Awards have come and gone with as much fanfare as a meeting of tannies sharing koeksisters and a bit of gesels en skinner. Hell, this is supposed to be the best thing on the continent. Expectations are high among the citizens of Africa and each time […]

Mungo Soggot The state oil company’s efforts to discipline its former chief, Kobus van Zyl, took a bizarre twist this week when the company decided to abandon his disciplinary inquiry and replace it with an internal probe. The disciplinary inquiry’s head was from outside the Strategic Fuel Fund (SFF) and Van Zyl was allowed legal […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Welkom | Friday 11.00PM. GRIQUAS continued their run of success in the Bankfin Currie Cup rugby competition when they beat Northern Free State 52-19 in Welkom’s North West Stadium on Friday night. Griquas did everything at a cracking pace and ran in five tries during the first 35 minutes to chalk up a […]

Charl Blignaut On stage in Johannesburg By the time the opening night applause had died down to a cacophany of hearty gels and a veritable nursery of spring bouquets had been trundled on to the Civic Theatre stage and into the sinewy, muscled arms of that world famous troupe of male ballerinas, New York-based Les […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Dar es Salaam | Friday 11.30PM. TANZANIA has expelled five Iraqis and a Libyan who were questioned by the FBI and police in connection of the bombing of the United States embassies in Kenya and Tanzania last month, a newspaper reported Friday. Immigration officials put Libyan Atif Issa Enhamed on a flight to […]

Marina Benjamin A Second Look When the expectation of crisis at the last century’s end failed to give Oscar Wilde a sufficiently satisfying frisson, he famously complained: “It’s the fin de sicle. I wish it were fin du monde.” Would that he were here to conjure a suitable epigram today. For as this century draws […]

ARMED AND DANGEROUS: FROM UNDERCOVER STRUGGLE TO FREEDOM by Ronnie Kasrils (Mayibuye/Jonathan Ball ) When this autobiography of Deputy Defence Minister Ronnie Kasrils first appeared in 1993, it was a bestseller. Five years on, with a new section detailing the author’s experiences in government, the question is: will it repeat its resounding success? Kasrils’s life […]

Nicholas Dawes Live in Cape Town Amampondo leader Dizu Plaatjies is one of the more popular teachers at the University of Cape Town’s College of Music, where he teaches African instruments and dance. The role is not one he sheds easily, and when “Madiba’s favourite band” played at the Drum Cafe in Gardens last Saturday, […]